1 Speculative Fiction, Catastrophe, and the Devolutionary Imagination

1 Speculative Fiction, Catastrophe, and the Devolutionary Imagination in Postwar Britain Erik B. Jaccard A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2017 Reading Committee: Laura Chrisman, Chair Ronald Thomas Foster Juliet Shields Louis Chude-Sokei Program Authorized to Offer Degree: English 2 University of Washington Abstract Speculative Fiction, Catastrophe, and the Devolutionary Imagination in Postwar Britain Erik Bryce Jaccard Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Laura Chrisman, Nancy K Ketcham Endowed Chair of English Erik B. Jaccard Speculative Fiction, Catastrophe, and the Devolutionary Imagination in Postwar Britain The reemergence of catastrophe as a dominant theme and figure in British speculative fiction after the Second World War coincides with a devolutionary turn in British politics and culture. In a moment when the British Empire is collapsing and the imperial state is reconfiguring around social democracy and managerial state culture, British speculative fiction utilizes catastrophe in order to explore the complex and often ambivalent narrative space in which interrogations of imperial Anglo-British history and culture open onto articulations of possible post-British futures. This dissertation explores how three sets of British sf catastrophe texts model this devolutionary imagination from historically situated English, Scottish, and Black British perspectives. Methodologically, it attempts to bridge a critical gap between devolutionary British literature and criticism and speculative and science fiction literature and criticism. I argue that 3 juxtaposing the two modes illuminates overlap between the dimensions of British speculative narrative and devolutionary culture, where the former becomes the terrain on which the latter is enacted. I advance this claim first through a series of critiques specific to English, Scottish, and Afrofuturist genre history and literary criticism. The dissertation then explores the devolutionary imagination as rendered in the novels of the English catastrophe novelist John Wyndham, whose respective catastrophes of collapse and invasion index both a challenge to, and a reaffirmation of, imperial English culture in the 1950s. I trace the development of a Scottish postcolonial personalism in the 1980s fictions of Alasdair Gray and Iain Banks, whose novels engage with and overturn the ideological assumptions of English catastrophe fiction. I conclude with an analysis of the affective catastrophism embedded in the pulp and genre sf fictions of the British black diaspora in the 1990s writing of Two Fingers and James T. Kirk and China Miéville. 4 © 2017 Erik B. Jaccard ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 5 Acknowledgments This project would not have been possible without the guidance and support of Laura Chrisman, who has been a mentor, an employer, a source of encouragement, and a trusted friend and colleague. Her patience and perseverance went a long way toward helping me find the finish line. Tom Foster’s ‘Race, Colonialism, and Science Fiction’ seminar in the fall of 2008 originally kindled my interest in the intersections between speculative narrative and imperial ideology and his knowledge of and enthusiasm for sf inspired me to push on. Juliet Shields has been my partner in all things Scottish, offering additional support, encouragement, and professional development advice throughout this process. Louis Chude-Sokei, a latecomer to the project, helped me get my bearings in the initially unfamiliar world of sound studies and Afrofuturist cultural criticism; his knowledge of, and willingness to talk at length about, music, fiction, and cultural memory played a key role in the development of Chapter Four. I would also like to thank Aaron Kelly, my Master’s dissertation supervisor at the University of Edinburgh; were it not for Aaron’s guidance and support, I may never have had the opportunity to come home to UW to pursue my PhD. I’ve had a number of other faculty mentors at UW who have shared wisdom and experience and I would particularly like to thank Joan Graham and Carrie Matthews for their friendship and wisdom. A handful of UK-based scholars took the time to read and comment on various versions of this project as it congealed into its current form. I would specifically like to thank Jane Elliott, Graeme Macdonald, Neil Lazarus, Benita Parry, Ben Harker, and Matthew McGuire. Additional gratitude is due to the cohort of friends and colleagues I’ve developed over the years at the University of Washington, particularly Andrew Rose, Curtis Hisayasu, Lee Einhorn, Ed Chang, Chris Martin, Raj Chetty, Danielle Magnusson, Danny Nelson, Gibran Escalera, Brian Gutierrez, Meri Bauer, Steph Hankinson, Samantha Simon, Alissa Bourbonnais, Ryan Helterbrand, Aaron Ottinger, Tony Manganaro, Jen Malone, Stevi Costa, and Yasi Naraghi. Jeremy Wattles has been in this with me from the beginning, when we were simultaneously filling out graduate school applications, to the end, when he was still graciously reading and commenting on my drafts. His friendship has been a blessing to me throughout the years. A hearty thanks goes out to my family, whose belief in me has helped make this and so many other things in my life possible. Finally, to Caitlin, whose independence, intellect, and love has helped shape me into a more effective thinker, a more conscious speaker, and a more courageous and thoughtful human being. 6 Contents Chapter One: Speculative Fiction, Catastrophe and the Devolutionary Imagination in Postwar Britain ............................................................................................................................................. 7 Devolutionary Englishness and the British Disaster Novel ...................................................... 15 Unmaking Scotland: Catastrophe and Postcolonial Personalism ............................................. 28 The Devolutionary Diasporic Imagination: Catastrophe and Black British Futurism .............. 45 Chapter Summaries ................................................................................................................... 62 Chapter Two: John Wyndham and the Catastrophe of Englishness ............................................. 68 Catastrophe, Middle-Class Radicalism and ‘the English Ideology’ ......................................... 75 The Catastrophe of Collapse: The Day of the Triffids .............................................................. 82 The Catastrophe of Invasion: The Midwich Cuckoos ............................................................. 107 Chapter Three: Catastrophe, Intersubjectivity, and the Scottish Devolutionary Imagination .... 136 Alasdair Gray’s Lanark: A Life in Four Books ....................................................................... 143 Which Way to InterSpace?: Iain Banks’ The Bridge and the Scottish Interspatial Catastrophe ................................................................................................................................................. 171 Chapter Four: A Whole New World Under the Cover of Darkness: The Microcatastrophes of Black British Sonic Fiction ......................................................................................................... 203 “A Whole New World Under the Cover of Darkness”: Two Fingers and James T. Kirk’s Junglist .................................................................................................................................... 210 Learning to Live with Non-Being: China Miéville’s King Rat and the Critique of Sonic Microcatastrophe..................................................................................................................... 247 Works Cited ................................................................................................................................ 269 7 Chapter One: Speculative Fiction, Catastrophe and the Devolutionary Imagination in Postwar Britain Introduction We re-create the horizons we have abolished, the structures that have collapsed; and we do so in terms of the old patterns, adapting them to our new worlds. —Frank Kermode, The Sense of an Ending This dissertation explores how British speculative fiction narratives of the postwar period index a turn in Anglo-British culture against the historical and cultural ideology of imperial Britain on the one hand, and toward the articulation of possible post-British, or ‘devolutionary,’ futures on the other. The decades immediately following the Second World War saw Britain relinquish its once considerable Empire while simultaneously reconsolidating national identity around consensus politics, Keynesian economics, social democratic reform, and the institutionalization of the modern Welfare State. This had a profound and dialectical impact on the constitution of postwar British society and culture. The End of Empire deprived imperial Britain of its primary economic, political, and subjective raison d’etre, leading the UK’s sub-national communities to interrogate the legacy and future of the Union. Similarly, the reconstitution of a modernized and highly centralized Anglo-British state after 1945 motivated articulations of devolutionary ‘post- British’ cultural consciousness among the UK’s constituent nations. ‘Devolutionary’ in this context meant the rise of a heightened political proto-nationalism among the formerly united nations of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. By the close of the Second World War, the tendency

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